Action man paratroopers swing into battle in English National Ballet's new Nutcracker, which has reached London after a regional tour. The paras prove no match for Uzi-toting mice in gas masks, led by a king who fights with a sword. Clara comes to the rescue of her duelling Nutcracker doll, who loses his ugly head. She kisses him back to life, transformed into a prince in white tights and a combat jerkin.

Grandpa does a twirl in his Zimmer frame. And Badger dances! By Jenny Gilbert for The Independent

English National Ballet might not have known what they were letting themselves in for when they gave caricaturist Gerald Scarfe carte blanche to design their new Nutcracker, but they were right about one thing: it isn't saccharine and it isn't dull.

Given that the company – virtually single-handed – has made an institution of The Nutcracker in this country, mounting the ballet every Christmas for more than half a century and changing its look every six years or so, it feels some obligation to shake things up. Yet it also has its bedrock audience of ballet purists to consider. The peculiar, sometimes uneasy, achievement of Nutcracker's latest incarnation – design and "concept" by Scarfe, choreography by 29-year-old Christopher Hampson – is that it really does do both.

After two important new productions on tour this past autumn, English National Ballet is now giving its regular Christmas and New Year London season. We reviewed the premieres when they happened; now is the chance to see how the dancers are settling into their new repertoire. And the answer is, pretty well, thank you. This is a company on the way up.

As usual in December Nutcracker season is upon us and ENB has returned to the London Coliseum for their annual month long residence, this time with their brand new production of the Tschaikovsky classic with designs by Gerald Scarfe and choreography by Christopher Hampson. Opening night saw a stellar cast with Irek Mukhamedov as Drosselmeyer, Erina Takahashi as Clara and Agnes Oakes and Thomas Edur as the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince. Drosselymeyer is the storyteller and takes us into the ballet by opening a giant book, that later turns into the walls of his god daughter Clara’s home where a Christmas party takes place. Scarfe’s costumes for the party guests are all over the top comic book style, very colourful and some guests are even sporting pink or blue hair. Grandpa even has a very curvy girlfriend named Miss V. Aggra. Although Clara is sporting a fire engine red bob it is on occasion quite difficult to spot her in the midst of this swirl of colour. The production comes up with a whole variety of fresh ideas that are fun to watch. When entertaining the party guests with magic, Drosselmeyer hypnotises the maid and gets her to literally let her hair down in a sexy dance with him. Clara, in a simple white pyjama, gets to fence with the evil Mouse King, defeating him of course. The Snow Flakes and Jack Frosts (!) emerge from a giant freezer and at the end of Act 1 Clara is whisked away by her Nutcracker prince on a giant folded paper bird.

In Act 2 the swirl of colour continues. Clara’s place for viewing the celebrations that are put on in her honour with Drosselmeyer is, you guessed it, a giant Chocolate Box. The costumes of the 3 matadors in the Spanish dance are so bright that they are almost blinding. The Arabian dance is stunning show piece and saw Begona Cao in high heels, posing seductively, surrounded by ‘dancing’ feathers. The Chinese dancers arrive by bike with take-out for Clara and dance with ribbons. But on Tuesday night it was Yat-Sen Chang, delivering impressive pyrotechnics as the Russian Bear who drew the most enthusiastic response from the audience. The dance of the Mirlitons shows off the spiral lines on their costumes to great effect and Clara and Drosselmeyer lead the dance of the Flowers before the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince take over the stage in the Grand Pas de Deux. Agnes Oakes and Thomas Edur of course never set a foot wrong and charmed the entire audience. In the end Clara and her Prince fly off again on the giant paper bird and it is left to Drosselmeyer to finish the tale by closing the story book.

Gerald Scarfe and Christopher Hampson have undoubtedly succeeded in producing a great and very entertaining show. Unfortunately a lot of the choreography is not particularly impressive, with the exception of the dance of the Mirlitons that strikes just the right balance between playing with the lines of the costumes and taking advantage of the skills of the dancers and the Grand Pas de Deux that is more or less preserved in its traditional form. Nevertheless as a first introduction to ballet children from 5 to 105 could do a lot worse than that. This new Nutcracker is a lot of fun and in my opinion a vast improvement over Deane’s production ENB presented last year. This year’s ENB season at the Coliseum will end on 04/01/03 so there is still time for the undecided to make up their minds. I recommend do not hesitate. Go and see it.

I'm certainly very glad that I went to see it and I did find it interesting, well staged and very well danced. But it does not seem to me that this production will be of enduring interest. Scarfe's designs are so highy stylised that I really do think that they get in the way of the choreography and I really dont't think that a production should be so design-led. Diaghilev, I believe, tried to integrate the design, music and choreography so that all three had equal billing. That really was not the case here.

Various of the critics have cited small people - ie children - as one good point about the ballet: that the bright colours and the strong and obvious caricatures appeal to a very young audience. Unfortunately, the five and six-year olds who were my companions for the evening expected something more traditional. Of course, what is traditional to a five year old is hard to plot. But since it was their first big night out at the ballet, I think they expected something more soft and classical. They were 'full of' the Sugar Plum Fairy when they came out. They did not like what Clara was wearing - the psychedelic colours did not go down well.

This was a shame. The girls had listened to the music and had the story read to them non-stop in the weeks leading up to the performance. It was charming that they disagreed amongst themselves as to the true version of the story having read different publications. I'm not sure that in their minds what they saw corresponded to what they had read about and that was a source of disappointment to them. There is no grandfather with a zimmer frame who does somersaults in the original, so they didn't understand why it was there on stage.

I believe you can take a fantasy and in subtle ways take that fantasy to new places, but the enduring success of The Nutcracker and of all those hackneyed and tawdry pantomimes that appear year in and year out, is that the stories are familiar, there's always a new audience of five year olds, and the fantasy conforms to a five year old's view of glamour.

Of course, five year-olds are not the only audience. But I believe you tamper with their fantasies at your peril. If the critics felt that children would have enjoyed it, they should have come along with my little party. These little girls had much more sartorial elegance in their party frocks than the Clara they had dressed up for.

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